Okay, a French Canadian, and someone whom I promptly married and remained married to for 23 mostly happy years.

It was made very clear to me and my family - my dad had to be one of the sponsors, since I was still a law student at the time - that entry into the country, with a green card, depended on our word that the immigrant would not be eligible for public benefits and would not need them.

Full stop.

Today, it's a bit different.

Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your new country can do for you.

"Welcome to USA.gov," a website maintained by the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), bills itself as the "primary gateway for new immigrants to find basic information on how to settle in the United States" — featuring a prominent section for new immigrants about how to access government benefits.

And so now, and for some years, we're in desperate need of immigration reform, to control borders that were once readily and routinely controlled.

In other words, government regulations once worked just fine.

Not any more.

Quelle surprise . . . .

Oddly enough, I see in this the possibility of practical, fair and comprehensive immigration reform, once and for all.

But that for another post, a bit later, when, if ever, I've improved the likelihood that someone who cares might be paying attention.